Longmont voters OK pot tax, funding for new public safety spending

Results posted by the Boulder County Clerk and Recorder's Office as of 2:15 a.m. Wednesday.

Issue 2H: Public safety sales, use tax increase

Yes: 13,266

No: 8,422

Issue 2I: Marijuana sales tax

Yes: 13,648

No: 7,965

Question 2J: Windy Gap Firming Project water bonds

Yes: 11,338

No: 9,705

Question 2K: Retention of Municipal Judge Robert J. Frick

Yes: 13,634

No: 5,171

A proposal to increase Longmont's municipal sales tax for public safety spending, as well as a measure that would impose a new sales tax on purchases of marijuana, were on their way toward easy victory Wednesday morning based on unofficial but still partial vote totals.

A third Longmont ballot question, one seeking voters' authorization for the city to issue up to $36.3 million in bonds for a water storage project, also was heading toward approval in those early Wednesday vote counts, but by a lesser margin than the tax measures.

Question 2J sought voters' authorization for Longmont to issue up to $36.3 million in bonds, backed at least in part by the city's charges to water users, that would pay part of the city's estimated $47 million share of costs for participating in the Windy Gap Firming Project.

Advertisement

Longmont voters were asked, with Issue 2H, for an increase in the city's current 0.325 percent public safety sales and use tax, raising it to 0.58 percent to pay for hiring additional police officers, firefighters, emergency dispatchers, and public safety support personnel, and to purchase equipment and facilities for providing public safety services.

The second tax measure on Longmont voters' ballots, Issue 2I, would impose a special 3 percent sales tax on purchases of recreational marijuana and marijuana products bought by customers from up to four city-licensed retail marijuana businesses, once they begin operating, generating a projected $1.3 million a year.

A fourth question on Longmont's municipal ballots, Question 2K, asked whether voters would authorize retaining Municipal Judge Robert J. Frick in that office for another two years. Frick's retention also was winning voter approval handily.

The Boulder alt-country band gives its EPs names such as Death and Resurrection, and its songs bear the mark of hard truths and sin. But the punk energy behind the playing, and the sense that it's all in good fun, make it OK to dance to a song like "Death." Full Story